Online Integrative Community Therapy in Latin America: Health Promotion in Times of COVID-19.

This study described integrative community therapy (ICT) in the online modality as a health promotion resource in the context of COVID-19 in Latin America, characterizing the ICT circles, the ICT training centers, and the community therapists involved in this practice. It is a descriptive, observational, and cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. Data were collected from November 2020 to July 2021 through an online questionnaire created on the Google Forms platform. The study's first stage involved the participation of ICT training centers, while the second involved community therapists. Forty-three centers participated in the first stage; 86.1% offered online ICT in the period evaluated, and 74.4% trained professionals to implement this modality. In the second stage, 66 community therapists responded to the questionnaire. Of these, 49 (74.2%) resided in Brazil, 84.8% were female, and 72.7% performed the work voluntarily, with an average of 6.1 hours per week dedicated to online circles. Community-based circles were the most cited, followed by those linked to the public sector, with an average of 20.7 participants/circle in the period. The most frequent themes were stress and negative emotions, problems with work/unemployment, and family conflicts. Strengthening self-care, participation in ICT circles, and personal empowerment stood out among the coping strategies. In conclusion, online ICT proved to be an innovative resource for health promotion during the pandemic through the articulation and engagement of community therapists and different institutions, expanding solidary social networks, and showing itself as a sustainable practice in the Latin American scenario.

Terapia comunitária integrativa na abordagem de transtornos mentais comuns na atenção primária à saúde: uma revisão sistemática / Community integrative therapy for common mental disorders in Primary Health Care: a systematic review

A Atenção Primária à Saúde (APS) constitui a porta preferencial de acesso ao Sistema de Saúde, devendo atender com resolutividade a maior parcela dos problemas de saúde, incluindo os transtornos mentais comuns (TMC). A Terapia Comunitária Integrativa (TCI) é uma ferramenta desenvolvida como um recurso para pessoas com sofrimentos de qualquer natureza, especialmente psicossociais, sendo reconhecida como tal e promovida no Sistema Único de Saúde para aplicação em cenários diversos, desde a APS até serviços de especialidades focais. O objetivo desta revisão sistemática da literatura foi buscar evidências que permitam avaliar a efetividade da TCI como forma de abordagem para pessoas com TMC na APS. A busca realizada para estudos publicados nos últimos 10 anos com o termo "Terapia Comunitária" na Bireme e "Community Therapy" no PubMed identificou, juntamente com outras fontes, 169 registros não duplicados. Após análise inicial dos títulos e resumos desses registros de acordo com os critérios de inclusão e exclusão, foram analisados os textos completos de 14 estudos, nenhum dos quais avaliava a efetividade da TCI de forma longitudinal, comparando os resultados desta com quaisquer outras modalidades de intervenção. Assim, não há evidências na literatura atual que apontem para a efetividade da TCI na abordagem dos TMC na APS. Sugere-se a necessidade do desenvolvimento de pesquisas com metodologia adequada para responder a essa questão e prover maior suporte teórico para a base empírica da TCI.

Primary Care (PC) services should be the first contact for resolutive care in the health system, including for people suffering of Common Mental Disorders (CMD). Community Integrative Therapy (CIT) is a tool developed as a resource for people with any kind of suffering, particularly psychosocial suffering, and provided by the Brazilian Health System (SUS) in different settings, as PC and secondary care services. This systematic review aimed to search evidences demonstrating CTI's effectivity in providing care for people with CMD in PC. The search was conducted for studies published in the last 10 years using the terms "Terapia Comunitária" ("Community Therapy") in Bireme and "Community Therapy" in PubMed. Considering these databases and other sources, there were 169 non-duplicated registries. After the previous analyses of titles and abstracts for inclusion and exclusion criteria, we found 14 studies that were taken to full text analysis. But neither of them was conducted to verify CTI's effectivity with a longitudinal design and comparing it with other forms of intervention. So, there are no current evidences to confirm or deny CTI's effectivity in providing care for people with CMD in PC. We suggest the need of new research projects to study that this question with adequate methodology in order to give a stronger theoretical support for CTI's empirical fundaments.